Patterns of Care Seeking During Episodes of Childhood Diarrhea and Its Relation to Preventive Care Patterns: National Integarated Monitorinh and Evaluation Survey (IMES) of Family Health Islamic Repob

Background: in iran, diarrheal disease is the fourth cause ofunder five?year mortality. proper care?seeking behavior andsystem?based disease management in the national field will have agreat effect in reducing morbidity and mortality.methods: this nationwide study was performed on a targetpopulation of rural and urban communities; in all 31 provinces ofthe islamic republic of iran. one lakh three thousand three hundredand thirty one (103331) families were sampled by multi?stagestratified random sampling and were interviewed with a standard datacollection form. the collected data was entered into the stata 8.0software and analyzed by the survey analysis method.results: of the 14625 (10.1%) children who were reported tohave diarrheal diseases two weeks prior to the interview, 8.8%were cured and 1.5% were not. about 70% of them had at leastone visit for health seeking the most of patients were seen bya rural health worker (behvarz) in the rural and by a generalpediatrician in the urban areas. about 62% of the patients inurban and 57% in the rural areas had been treated with antibioticsand these rates for ors were 51% and 65%, respectively. thefactors most related to a care?seeking pattern were the level ofroutine preventive well?child care, number of siblings, child age,and living area.conclusion: according to this national survey, our health systemneeds to integrate all the levels of prevention, especially theintegrated management of child illnesses (imci) programs witha family physician project. futher more, there is a great need forempowering the referral system and gate keeping in all referrallevels, to make efficient national integrated programs.